E 

H'J3 



AN ADDRESS 



>^;.TrHB OCCASION OF THE MEETINC 

OF THc 



B LU E" AND TH E "GRAY' 



ON 



THE BATTLEFIEtb 



Cedar Mountain, Va . 



AUGUST 9th, \mi. 



THE FQRTItTH ANNIVIBSARY OF THE BATTLe 



-BY 



WILLIAM PENN LLOYD. 



MECHANICSBORG, PA. 




Glass H.^13 
Book L r]^ 



AN ADDRESS 



ON THE OCCASION OF THE MEETING 
OF THE 



"BLUE" AND THE "GRAY" 

ON 

THE BATTLEFIELD 

OF 

Cedar Mountain, Va. 

AUGUST 9th, 1902. 

THE FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE. 
BY 

WILLIAM PENN LLOYD, 

OF 

MECHANICSBURG, PA. 



It 



■;>r tra.Tisfei 



ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 



After several hours spent in visiting points of special 
interest and partaking of a sumptuous dinner tendered by the 
ladies of Cedar Mountain and vicinity the audience, several 
thousand in numbers, assembled in a grove on the Battlefield. 
During the exercises which consisted of addresses and music 
by a Ladies' choir and Washington Band, General John P. 
Taylor, formerly a Captain and afterwards Colonel of the 
First Pennsylvania Cavalry, was called upon for a response. 
After briefly recalling some thrilling incidents of the battle, 
he stated that it was not his intention to make a speech, but 
that he had issued a peremptory order to his former Adjutant- 
General, Colonel William Penn Lloyd, to discharge that duty. 

His Honor, Judge D. A. Grimsley, who presided, at once 
enforced the order with all the graceful firmness of Virginia's 
Judiciary, and Mr. Lloyd responded as follows : 

Friends and Fellow-citizens : I feel it a duty to state, 
for the benefit of those of you who may hereafter enjoy a 
more intimate acquaintance with my dear old General, who 
seems to think that his orders of forty years ago are still in 
force, at least so far as I am concerned, — that beneath the 
placid and genial countenance which he wears there is some- 
times concealed a good deal of the schemer. 

I have indubitable evidence that it was through his machi- 
nations that I have been forced upon you on this occasion. 
Learning that his regiment, which had taken a prominent 
part in the battle of Cedar Mountain, might be called upon 
for a response, he clandestinely shifted the burden from his 
shoulders to mine, doubtlessly for the purpose of putting me 
in a tight place, and also to test your stock of Job's chief 

(3) 



virtue. I think I have, however, partially circumvented him 

in his first object by hastily penciling some notes in the "wee 
hours" of this morning while he was elaborating one of his 
old Pennsylvania snores, dreaming the while that he was 
shaking the rock-ribbed hills of his lime-stone farms and 
making the corn grow, — as without some forethought I should 
never have presumed to address an audience of such high 
culture and intelligence as is now before me ; and as to his 
second purpose, he will have to answer to you. 

But as I now have said all the bad I know about him I 
will try to find a word of good. 

One of his most sterling and picturesque virtues is his 
extreme modesty (how some people deceive their looks), and 
I have a striking example ready at hand. In the fiercely 

fought battle we are now assembled to commemorate, he led 
a squadron in a desperate charge made by the first battalion 
of the First Pennsylvania Cavalry against a heavy body of 
your infantry to save Knap's Battery. The dash and 

return lasted less than twenty minutes, and yet his modesty so 
overcame him at the gushing reception you gave us, that he 
left with you 92 of the 164 men he took with him, together 
with his horse, and himself came back on his hands and 
knees. 

Another fact may be mentioned to his credit, — one 
that I know you will duly appreciate — that he strenuously en- 
deavored to assuage the miseries of war by vigilantly and 
sternly protecting the homes of the helpless victims of the 
strife. I can personally testify to this noblest virtue of the 
true soldier, as I executed his orders in this regard as his 
Adjutant and Adjutant-General for a year and a half. It will 
also be corroborated by many grateful Virginia homes, the in- 
mates of some of which I am glad to learn are present on this 
occasion. 

I may also add that all the apology I have to make 
for the sentiments expressed in the following notes is that 
they were inspired by the Virginia air I have breathed for the 
last twenty-four hours. 

(4) 



THE ADDRESS. 



It has been wisely said that, " Great ideas travel 
slowly and for a time noiselessly as the gods whose feet are 
shod with wool." 

It took unnumbered centuries to demonstrate that 
pagan civilization was better than barbarism. It took two 

thousand years more to convince mankind that Christianity is 
better than paganism, — and that work is not yet half accom- 
plished. It took hundreds of years to wring from feudalism 
the Magna Charta of our Anglo-Saxon liberties, and it is 
scarcely a century and a quarter since our fore-fathers aston- 
ished the world with the Declaration of Independence. 

While highest credit is due to those who won in 
these, and numberless other efforts of mankind in its upward 
trend, yet charity commands us to always reflect, that had we 
been participants in the struggle and surrounded by the same 
influences and conditions as those who lost, — whether we 
would not probably have been numbered with them. 

Two Hundred and Eighty-Two years ago there was 
brought to this continent two, now historic ideas, irreconcila- 
bly hostile to each other. 

The one was then so new and untried as to be regarded 
by the sages and statesmen of the day with scarcely the cold 
courtesy of a passing notice ; while the other, venerable as 
the ages, was sincerely believed by its supporters to be both 
sanctioned and commended by Divine Revelation. The 

Mayflower which landed the advocates of the first on Plymouth 
Rock, on her next voyage transported a cargo of slaves to 
the West Indies, and a Dutch brig another cargo to James- 
town, Virginia. More than three score years after this, 
the consciences of our Puritan Fathers seemed not to have 

(5) 



been much quickened on the question of slavery. In 

1682, one of their most advanced and learned leaders in 
Puritan thought and theology, and an early graduate of 
Harvard College, wrote to another "beloved brother in the 
bowels of Christ" as he styled him, — stating that there was 
then " at sea a ship called the Welcome which had on board 
more than an hundred of the heretics and malignants, called 
Quakers, with W. Penn, who was the chief scamp, at the 
head of them ; that secret orders had been given to the mas- 
ter of the brig Porpoise, to slyly waylay and capture Penn 
and his ungodly crew ; and that much spoil could be made 
by selling the whole lot to Barbadoes where slaves fetched 
good prices in rum and sugar." 

Had lemons been added to this list of " spoil" cur- 
rency it might have been inferred that these grave-faced 
gentlemen were not unacquainted with the medicinal virtues 
of, — toddy. This letter is given in full in the present 

August number of "Law Notes," and is taken from Judge 
Lurton's recent able address before the Georgia Bar Associa- 
tion in which he pertinently remarks: That "Men, their 
creeds, and their institutions must be measured by the stand- 
ards which were recognized as best at the time 

The severe climate and limited area of tillable lands of 
the Northeast offered no inducements to the New England 
settlers to employ slave labor, and other conditions similar in 
their influence soon excluded it from the territory that after- 
wards formed the Middle and Western States, and hence 
there was in the North no economic, persuasive motive to 
modify its growing sentiment against slavery. On the 

other hand, the Sunny South, with its broad fertile plains, 
and specially adapted soil to the profitable culture of cotton 
and rice, offered great pecuniary inducements to establish and 
maintain that institution. 

Thus were planted on this continent the germs of 
these two opposing ideas, — the one eventually predominating 
in the North, and the other in the South. In this instance, 

(6) 



as in all others in history, when such ideas come together 
there is an " irrepressible conflict." 

In our vast expanse of territory there was for a long 
time room for both ; and as both had great interests in com- 
mon, for more than a century neither was conscious of the 
fatal antagonisms that were developing. 

Our patriot fathers saw the gathering storm in the dis- 
tant future, and dealt with the grave problem in the constitu- 
tion, in a spirit of compromise, — hoping that, that future would 
find a way to meet and peaceably determine the question. 

In the North all the influences social, moral and edu- 
cational, that cultivate individual convictions and create pub- 
lic sentiment were arrayed against slavery, while in the South 
these influences were as strenuously and sincerely employed 
in its support and justification. 

In the North the opposition was mainly sustained by 
moral and political sentiment, while in the South there was a 
still more serious question to be met, — a question that seemed 
to threaten its whole social and economic fabric. 

Since I have learned to appreciate, even to the lim- 
ited degree that one not a native resident of the South can 
appreciate, the influences, conditions and necessities that sur- 
rounded and confronted her people, I have an impelling con- 
viction that had I been a native born resident of the South — 
my home and my kindred there, — when the war came, I would 
doubtlessly have been as ardent a boy in gray as I endeav- 
ored to be a boy in blue, from 1861 to 1865. 

But the issue stood not alone on sentiment and eco- 
nomic considerations, however insuperable these, at the time, 
seemed to be, but involved the interpretation of the funda- 
mental law of the nation. 

Our state and national records show that our ablest 
statesmen, as Webster and Calhoun, discussed the subject, 
pro and con, and with a logic irresistible to those whose side 
they championed. 

The first oath taken by Abraham Lincoln to support 
(7) 



the Constitution of the United States, when mustered as a 
captain of militia in the Black Hawk war, was administered 
by a lieutenant on General Scott's staff, who had also taken 
the same oath when he entered the United States Army, — 
and that lieutenant was — Jefferson Davis. These noted men, 
in their subsequent history, "pledged their lives, their for- 
tunes, and their sacred honors," to the cause which they re- 
spectfully espoused, — the one to maintain the nation as an 
indestructible Union, and the other to treat it as a Confedera- 
tion of States. Who will say that each was not sincere in 
his convictions of the rectitude of his position? 

These questions finally became apolitical issue of such 
momentous concern as to awaken the most grave and porten- 
tous apprehension, — growing in intensity for the thirty years 
prior to the war, and eventually kindling sectional animosities 
to such a degree as to effectually exclude the wise offices of 
law, justice and reason, and to leave only as a last resort, — 
an appeal to the arbitrament of the sword. Before that tri- 
bunal the South appeared as plaintiff, and the North promptly 
answered the challenge as defendant, — each, with a sublime 
courage never before equalled in the world's history, eager 
and resolute to vindicate and defend its conception of the 
principles involved in the contest. The records of war 

furnish no similar example where all the usual selfish motives 
and incentives were so completely subordinated to the sincere 
convictions, that each was striking for the right, as was ex- 
hibited in our late civil strife. 

The bloody trial dragged its slow length along for 
four dreadful, agonizing years before the verdict was rendered 
at Appomattox, and there and then the issue settled. Until 
the question whether it could have been settled in any other 
way within the reach of human endeavor, as it is now sitllid 
can be answered in the affirmative, — where is there any just 
or sane grounds to continue, by crimination and recrimina- 
tion, to live over the horrors of that deplorable conflict? 

How nobly have our people. South and North, acted 
upon the charitable, humane, and in this regard, patriotic 

(8) 



principle, that it is wisest to let by-gones be by-gones, and 
the shades of oblivion gather around the errors of the past. 
Where else, in all the annals of time, can be found the sub- 
lime spectacle of a mighty nation, rent asunder by such a 
gigantic war as ours was, and to-day, less than forty years 
after its thunders had ceased, present to the world a people 
numbering nearly eighty millions, — united in heart, united in 
hand, and united in every interest that contributes to its pros- 
perity, its honor, and to everlasting peace within the United 
States of America? 

All honor to those who stood in the fore-front of bat- 
tle and bore the brunt of the great trial, for it was those who 
wore the blue and those who wore the gray, who first fol- 
lowed the examples of their great captains. Grant and Lee, 
and clasped hands across the bloody chasm. 

How eloquently this auspicious occasion proclaims the 
joyous fact that this grasp is growing stronger, warmer and 
more thrilling with every rolling year. 

A sweeping glance that blends the past with the pres- 
ent of our Nation's history for the last half century, illustrates 
the truth that, "There is a divinity that shapes our ends, 
rough hew them how we will," — and yet how severe is the 
ordeal through which we must sometimes pass before that 
shaping is completed. 

Proudly we now stand a peer among the first and 
mightiest powers of the earth ; but what a price we paid for 
that bUndcd strength that more than all else has made us the 
superb nation we are to-day. Yes, what a price! Nearly 
a million of lives of our noblest citizens, and multi-billions of 
treasure, with all the other destructive results that follow in 
the wake of a war like ours. This grievous burden rested 

on both sections, but far the heavier portion fell to the lot of 
the South. When I returned from the war to my northern 
home, I found it just as I had left it — peaceful and prosperous 
— but I have carried in my memory as a haunting spectre all 
these years, the image of your wasted fields and desolated 

(9) 



homes which I then left behind me. During the years of 

the war, the North was, in its economic conditions, a veritable 
Eldorado. Its mercantile, manufacturing and agricultural 

interests were not only untouched, but greatly stimulated by 
the war, and a prosperity secured that reached the humblest 
hamlet, and developed resources that contributed to a wealth 
which soon commanded the credit of the world, — while to the 
South, the war was like the Simoon of the desert, withering 
every energy, blasting every effort, and leaving destitution 
and ruin in its track. 

Another burden which the South has borne almost 
singly and alone, is "The Race Problem." While the 

marvelously recuperative powers of her people have long since 
converted the desert waste of the war into fertile, productive 
fields, and much more than replaced all her other blighted 
material interests, yet this grave and perplexing problem, be- 
queathed to her by the war, remains only partially solved, to 
still menace her peace and retard her progress. Upon this 
serious question that should command the candid and earnest 
consideration of every patriotic citizen of the land, I will ven- 
ture a further remark. 

May I assure you that our thoughtful and intelligent 
citizens of the North give no credence to the distorted and ex- 
aggerated statements of instances of lawlessness in the South, 
made by demagogues and traducers, for the purpose of stir- 
ring up sectional animosities; but on the contrary, these 
vicious efforts deepen and strengthen our sympathies for those 
who are laboring to remove the onerous burden. 

Among the sterling characteristics of our people. North 
and South, are candor, fairness, and generosity, and when 
correctly advised of the facts of a situation, they may be de- 
pended upon to act on those principles. 

Recent years have revealed much of the true situation 
in the South, before obscured by sectional prejudice and par- 
tisan misrepresentations. To the able and candid state- 



(10) 



ments of Southern men, the North owes much of the light it 
now possesses on that situation. 

The transcendently eloquent and masterful discussion 
of the "Race Problem," by Henry W. Grady, Georgia's 
matchless editor and orator, in his Boston speech, December 
12, 1889, like the jeweled beatitudes of "The Sermon on the 
Mount," has been working its hallowing leaven until to-day 
our most enlightened and potent sentiment is in full, deep 
sympathy with the South in its every effort to solve that 
problem. 

We are rapidly learning to know each other better, 
and with that knowledge comes a mutual confidence, which 
nurtured and cultivated as it now is, by the unifying influences 
of our institutions, moral, social, economic and political, will 
make us one people, one in kindred, in race, and in tongue 
— Americans All — in a higher and truer sense than has ever 
been realized by any other nation, past or present. 

We all now equally honor the old flag as the emblem 
of our nationality, and love it as our flag. Your boys of 

the South and our boys of the North have, in the recent war 
in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, marched shoulder 
to shoulder beneath its waving glories, and side by side have 
fought until victory crowned their valor. 

I am sure we can all, here and now, heartily voice the 
sentiment that inspired their patriotism for their country, and 
their devotion to its flag, — and say : 

" Flag of the free hearts only home, 
By Angel hands to valor given ! 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome 
And all thy hues were born in heaven ; 
Forever float that standard sheet ! 
Where breathes the foe but fall before us. 
With freedom's soil beneath our feet. 
And freedom's banner streaming o'er us!" 

(At the conclusion of Mr. Lloyd's address, the Ladies'Choir sang- 
" The Star Spanvrled Hanner," in which the audience joined with 
patriotic fervor). 

(11) 

L. 0.' 0* 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 701 505 5 



